The natural Escape

YAAHHOOO!! I’m Blazing through the woods on my HIFI Gary Fisher mountain bike with the fresh clean cider air filling my lungs. I come to a sharp turn to the right in the trail and skid around a tree barely missing by inches. My body pulses with the adrenalin rush as I come to the peak of The Hill, a hill that is more of a steep cliff side about 5 meters tall with a small trail down the side of it. I race off the side of it and let gravity grab me back to Earth with a thrill in my chest at 9.8 meters per second, as I accidentally think of my physics class but forget it the next instant. When I ride down the bottom I stop and look back and take a swig from my Camelback, that was awesome!, then look ahead to the trail waiting to engulf me and test my limits. I believe that nature is the natural escape.

Escape from everything in thing in the world: school, cell phones, work, stress, iPod, TV, computer, and virtual reality games. When I am out in the outdoors I get the freedom from everything that fills my schedule to the brim. When I am at school or home I long to be free. I believe that everyone should take a time out of their busy schedule to stop and go somewhere, even if it’s the backyard, to take a moment away from there cell phones, e-mail and life. To take a moment and take a breather from life.

One thing I hate is when I’m with a bunch of people that gripe about being outdoors and that kills my enjoyment of my freedom. I went on a field trip to a state park and when I was with my group many of them complained of the difficulty and wishing they could be at home in front of there Xbox or wish they saw the TV show they missed. And that made me so mad that they were like that. For one they were out of school that should be an up. When I hear that people don’t go camping or hiking or go to the local park all I want to do is tell them what they’re missing.

Whether you believe in creation or not nature is a place that is amazing. To see things that haven’t been disturbed by much more than the tools that built the trail. To see the magnificence of great mountains or amazing waterfalls. To feel the wind and hear the sounds of nature, not cars, music, TV, or electronic voices in cell phones. I love the Life Is Good™ brand with all their merch. devoted to the enjoyment of the outdoors. They have a shirt that has a stick guy on a mountain bike barreling down a hill with the line “Life Is Good” under it. I feel blessed with a dad that loves being outdoors and is always wanting to go camping or mountain biking.

This is why I believe that nature is the natural escape, where I’m free of everything that runs my schedule.

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This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.